My Trip To The Mojave Desert

[Gold Catcher]

I went on a little day trip to the Mojave Desert, California. It is within a day’s round trip from where I live but I had to get up at 3 am to get there on time and to have enough time available for prospecting. I decided to just have a little exploration trip and to check out this new area that I had in mind. The general area that I wanted to explore has a long history of lode and placer mining, mostly in the late 19^th century, but mining was not been done on grand scale due to the extreme harsh weather conditions and lack of water. It is not too far away from Death Valley with temperatures easily reaching 115 deg F and above in summer (43 deg C) and way below freezing at night time in winter. I happen to like this harsh and unforgiving environment and spending time there is like being in a meditative state thinking to be in a foreign world, or like being on another planet.

 

I selected a canyon area that I spotted on google earth that had a couple of old placer mines nearby.

The geology is in this general region is characterized by tertiary sandstone, shale, conglomerate, breccia, and ancient lake deposits. However, there are also significant lava rock occurrences in form of highly mineralized volcanic tuff which makes detecting extremely challenging.

This is a little depiction of the rocks you find there. Many of these rocks are screamers that neither the 6000 nor the 7000 were able to handle. What made the situation even more complicated is that these “hot rocks” were not just on the surface but also buried all the way deep. So, identifying targets of interest that were worth-wile digging was nearly impossible and many times I found hot rocks 1-2 feet deep that the detector picked up. I started with the 6000 and found my first little nugget very close to the surface, around 2 inch deep. What made this one interesting was that it was stuck on a volcanic tuff rock. This is another example of how gold flakes can be stuck to these rocks and wiping the dirt off of them before throwing them away can pay off.

 

I run the 6000 on Auto/Normal/threshold on with the detector volume set all the way down to 1 but with the headset volume set to about 6 clicks. This actually worked remarkably well and made detecting a lot easier without losing sensitivity. I can highly recommend these settings and I believe Steve and JP have commented on this before. I also picked up a lot of tiny bird shots, another example of how sensitive the 6000 is. I then switched to the 7000/NF-Zsearch which I run in HY/Normal/Sens 15/semi-auto GB/smoothing off/volume 6/threshold 27. To my surprise, the detector was fairly stable under these conditions but the hot rocks still remained a major issue (no surprise). However, even when using these fairly hot settings I picked up way less bird shots than with the 6000. This was a striking example of how much more sensitive the 6000 is on tiny shallow surface targets. I managed to pick up 3 more flakes, all of which were extremely thin and flat.

 

The nature of these flakes is suggestive of water wearing and major pounding force as part of the volcanic activity and alluvial mass flows. The only way to pick these up was by extremely slow swing speed and strict coil control which paid off in this difficult to detect area. Had I moved faster as part of ground scanning I would have missed them for sure. Overall, I was happy with my finds (albeit very modest) as I think this area has potential despite the challenging detecting conditions. I will definitely go back there for a more thorough and longer exploration.

The landscape and general area are absolutely breathtaking! Many bad things can be said about California, but the nature is amazing and extremely divers, with the gold rich Sierra Nevada to the North and the vast gold bearing Mojave and Colorado deserts to the South, all of which are just within a 3-6 hour drive, depending on where you live.

Here is the trash/gold ratio for the day

Well, it doesn’t look too good for the “gold team”. But when does it ever? 😛

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and a safe, healthy, happy and prosperous new year!

GC

 

[aerospace guy]

Gold Catcher..this is where I detect 99% of the time. I belong to 3 clubs that have claims in the area. I just posted a week or so ago about trouble with "hot rocks" with my EQ800 and asked for some tips. I think the EQ does ok and will find bird shot and -20(classified size) gold all day long. However, you are correct in saying there  R HRocks R on the surface and buried all over...some areas R more free of them than others. I used a GPX5000 for years out here and frankly the EQ does WAY better than it ever did! I know people say the 6000 will do good out here but I'd like to see it run out here to see for myself how it does. Good luck and hope you find some bigger gold. I found a 4.3 grammar this year there with the EQ.

[Gold Catcher]

15 minutes ago, aerospace guy said:

Gold Catcher..this is where I detect 99% of the time. I belong to 3 clubs that have claims in the area. I just posted a week or so ago about trouble with "hot rocks" with my EQ800 and asked for some tips. I think the EQ does ok and will find bird shot and -20(classified size) gold all day long. However, you are correct in saying there  R HRocks R on the surface and buried all over...some areas R more free of them than others. I used a GPX5000 for years out here and frankly the EQ does WAY better than it ever did! I know people say the 6000 will do good out here but I'd like to see it run out here to see for myself how it does. Good luck and hope you find some bigger gold. I found a 4.3 grammar this year there with the EQ.

Thanks for your comments, aerospace guy. And congrats to this beautiful nugget. Yes, there is also much bigger gold in this larger general area. One of which was the "Mojave Nugget" (156 troy oz).  

[JCR]

Starkly beautiful country. Thanks for the nice photos & report.

Maybe someday Tarsacci will produce their Gold specific MDT detector. It may have a better chance in dealing with the hot rocks & mineralization. Interesting dilemma.

[Swegin]

Congrats on the gold.  Very nice pictures also.  I love the desert.

 

[beatup]

well done 

 

[GB_Amateur]

Those hot rocks really separate the experts from the also-rans, no matter what detector is being used.  Well done!

[flakmagnet]

Nice work.

We passed by your house yesterday driving down from Fairfield.
I hoped you were out somewhere fun.
Have great Holidays.

 

[Gold Catcher]

4 minutes ago, GB_Amateur said:

Those hot rocks really separate the experts from the also-rans, no matter what detector is being used.  Well done!

Thanks, GB_A. It was not easy to get these out in that difficult terrain. Quite honestly I am worried that detecting might not be the most efficient way to recover more gold from there. I have to think about what detector or setting I will be using the next time. I am pretty certain that there is more gold there and I suspect others have tried but given up due to all the false signals. 

[Gold Catcher]

11 minutes ago, flakmagnet said:

Nice work.

We passed by your house yesterday driving down from Fairfield.
I hoped you were out somewhere fun.
Have great Holidays.

 

Thanks, Dave. Enjoy the rain up here...Let's get together again soon in the new year. The area I was yesterday is close to where we were the last time 🙂

Happy Holidays to you and your family!

GC